Review & Discussion
Rare first edition dust
jacket of the novel,
published in 1952
Bernard Malamud’s The Natural
Bernard Malamud, 1914-1986
Bernard Malamud was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Russian-Jewish
immigrants. He grew up in humble circumstances, learning to love literature and
the ‘National Pastime,’ baseball, especially as played by his home team, the
Brooklyn Dodgers. Malamud attended the City College of New York and
Columbia University. After earning his M.A., he worked as a night school
teacher and later as an adjunct professor of composition, writing in his free time.
In 1952, he published his first novel – The Natural.
Literary Career & Reputation
Malamud, at center, pictured with four other leading Jewish novelists of the 20 th
Century: Franz Kafka, Grace Paley, Philip Roth, and Saul Bellow
Though Malamud is most famous for The Natural, a book that avoids Jewish
content or themes, his most highly regarded work describes the Jewish-American
immigrant experience in the early to mid-20th century. His novels The Assistant
(1957), about a Jewish Brooklyn grocer who takes in a dubious Italian-American
assistant, and The Fixer (1967), about anti-Semitism in Tsarist Russia, are seminal
works in the development of a Jewish-American literary tradition, whose most
important writers are Malamud, Saul Bellow, and Philip Roth.
The Natural & Arthurian Legend
The Natural is an allegorical novel in which Bernard Malamud exploits
the archetypes of Arthurian ‘Grail’ legend and transfers them to a
modern setting, in which baseball players are quest heroes (the New
York ‘Knights’), and the pennant stands in as the ‘Holy Grail.’
Grail Lore & Symbolism
Like the quest knights of Arthurian
legend who appear in early English
poems and verse tales such as ‘Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight’ and
Malory’s ‘La Morte D’Artur,’ Roy is
a Romantic hero involved in a quest
and beset by obstacles—
particularly, seduction by evil or
morally corrupt women, a common
trope in Romantic verse.
Malamud imagined Roy Hobbs as a
quest knight with mythical abilities.
Like Arthur, Roy uses a special
‘weapon’—’Wonderboy,’ an apparently
‘magical’ bat with similar qualities and
characteristics to Arthur’s ‘Excalibur,’
also known as ‘the sword in the stone.’
The ‘Fisher King’
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Like Percival, one of the more prominent
knights of grail lore, Roy is mentored by an
‘uncle-type’ figure—the team manager, Pop
Fisher, who is modeled on ‘The Fisher
King’: a wounded hero whose land (i.e.,
team) suffers along with his own afflictions,
and who needs a hero to restore his health
by discovering and claiming the Holy Grail.
Left: Wilford Brimley as Pop Fisher in the film version of
‘The Natural’; right: an etching of the mythical Fisher King.
‘Based on a True Story?’
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The character of Roy Hobbs is based mostly on three different
real-life baseball players who symbolize the novel’s heroic and
tragic themes. Ted Williams, the preeminent slugger during the
era in which the novel was written and published, once famously
claimed that he wanted to be remembered as ‘the best there ever
was,’ and, in the eyes of many fans, he achieved this goal, but at a
cost: his vaulting ambition reflected a difficult personality prone
to ugly outbursts and surly relations with the baseball media, and
though he was adored by fans, he had few friends and was often
criticized by the press, despite his obvious gifts as a hitter.
Based on a True Story, cont.
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Also present in Malamud’s tragic hero are echoes of Shoeless Joe Jackson,
the star outfielder for the notorious 1919 Chicago ‘Black’ Sox—the White
Sox squad who, heavily favored to win the World Series, lost in stunning
fashion to the Cincinnati Reds. Eight White Sox players—including
Jackson (who, like Williams would later be, was sometimes referred to as
‘The Natural’—were later exposed to have collaborated with a group of
mob-connected gamblers to throw the Series and were permanently
expelled from baseball. A widespread apocryphal anecdote describes
Shoeless Joe emerging from the courthouse to be met by a young boy who
said ‘Say it ain’t so, Joe!’
Based on a True Story, cont.
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The most curious and fascinating historical influence on Roy
Hobbs’ character was a lesser known player. Eddie Waitkus was a
decorated war hero and an emerging star for the Chicago Cubs in
the late 40s. When he was traded to Philadelphia, a deranged
female fan followed him there and shot Waitkus outside a hotel
near the Jersey Shore, nearly killing him and cutting short his
baseball career. Though Waitkus eventually recovered and returned
to baseball, he never completely returned to form and retired as a
case of unrealized potential.
Other Influences/References
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Some of the details of Roy Hobbs’
character are also based on Babe Ruth;
the character who most resembles Ruth,
however, is Walter ‘The Whammer’
Wamboldt, whom Roy apparently
eclipses in the pitcher vs. batter duel that
precipitates Harriet Byrd’s attack on Roy.
Most of the characters in the novel are
based on either an historical or mythical
counterpart (Judge Goodwill Banner =
Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, who
arbitrated the Black Sox Scandal in 1919;
Harriet Bird = Lady Bercilak in Sir
Gawain & the Green Knight, etc.).
Herman ‘Babe’ Ruth
The Natural and Heroic Epic
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Less prominent but nonetheless significant to the symbolic and
thematic structure of the novel are allusions to Heroic Epic. When
Roy meets Harriet Byrd on the train to Chicago, she asks him
whether or not he has read Homer. Roy replies that the ‘only
homer he’s heard of has four bases;’ Byrd goes on to compare
modern-day athletes to the champions of the heroes of ancient wars
described in Epic poetry.
Left: Odysseus slays the suitors who have
exploited his kingdom in The Odyssey. Right:
The duel of Achilles and Hector in The Iliad.
Major Themes
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Choices and
Consequences
Coping with Failure
Good vs. Evil
‘The Divided Soul’
‘The Integrity of the
Game’
Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs in the film version,
which notoriously alters the conclusion to turn
Malamud’s tragic morality play into a rousing fairy
tale of redemption and mythic glory.
Style
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Allegory
Realism vs. Fantasy
Foreshadowing
Allusion
Glenn Close as Iris Lemon in the film version—
when Iris is in the stands (dressed in virtuous,
virginal white), Roy can’t miss.
Paragraph Topics
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Write a short paragraph (150-250 words) on one
of the following topics/themes from The
Natural:
The use of allegory/symbolism in the novel
The evolution of the hero throughout the novel.
Roy Hobbs’ relationship to the history of
professional sports, from the 1919 Black Sox to
the present